FOSTORIA | Independent Tack Co. and Seneca Wire: When Fostoria Made Tacks and Roofing Nails

Author: FFP Ai Bot

Independent Tack Co., Fostoria, real-photo postcard, about 1915-1920

FOSTORIA — A long, low factory, a row of smokestacks, a water tower and a big round pond: the real-photo postcard above is labeled simply “Independent Tack Co. Fostoria, Ohio.” Behind it is the story of an Indiana machinist whose nail-making machine brought him to Fostoria in 1905, a wire company that would outlast him by more than a century, and a tack factory that the trade press called one of the city’s newest industries in 1915.

This installment of our local history series pieces that story together from a 1908 county history, trade journals of the 1910s, Ohio state reports and Ohio EPA records. The Independent Tack Co. left only a faint paper trail, and where we could not confirm a detail, we say so.

Quick timeline

The inventor

Most of what is known about Emsley O. Grose comes from a biography in the 1908 “Centennial History of Summit County, Ohio,” a copy of which is held by the Library of Congress. It says Grose was born Feb. 17, 1872, in Tipton, Ind., the eldest of 11 children of a farmer and Civil War veteran. He learned the machinist’s trade in Anderson, Ind., and went to work in that city’s wire nail mill.

In July 1899 he moved to Cuyahoga Falls, near Akron, working about 18 months for the E.A. Henry Wire Co. and a year at a rivet works. All the while, the biography says, he was “evolving in his mind” a new kind of wire nail machine, one he believed would make large-headed wire roofing nails more efficiently than anything on the market.

Fostoria, 1905: Seneca Wire

In 1905 Grose finished his invention “and went to Fostoria to see about putting it on the market,” the 1908 history says. There, it credits him with organizing the Seneca Wire & Manufacturing Co. and serving six months as superintendent of its nail department.

State records date Seneca Wire to that same year. An Ohio EPA order issued in 2009 notes the company was authorized to do business in Ohio on Nov. 22, 1905, and describes its plant at 319 S. Vine St. as a tempered-wire mill making wire for springs and for automotive, agricultural and other uses. The 1908 biography is the only source we found that names Grose as Seneca Wire’s organizer, and the company’s other founders are not named in it, so his exact role should be read as the biographer’s account.

Seneca Wire became one of Fostoria’s long-running employers; the historical society’s neighborhood columns mention a number of residents who worked “at Seneca Wire.” The 2009 state order notes a July 24, 2004, fire that destroyed a building housing nine furnaces, seven of which were lost.

The Independent Tack Co.

After his six months in Fostoria, the 1908 biography says, Grose went back to Cuyahoga Falls and organized the Independent Tack Co., serving as its president and general manager. He had spent years designing a tack-making machine and built a practical model in early 1907. By 1908 he had a dozen of his automatic machines running, and the biography says demand “far exceeds the supply.” It also notes that Grose belonged to Fostoria Lodge No. 86 of the Knights of Pythias, a sign that his ties to Fostoria lasted.

By 1915 the company had a Fostoria plant. That year the Iron Age and Steel and Iron reported that “the Independent Tack Company will make galvanizing machinery and tacks” at a Fostoria plant, and the Ohio Journal of Commerce called the factory one of the city’s “latest industries,” newly opened “with enough orders on the books to keep busy for several months.” In 1916 the Iron Age reported the company had ordered more machinery and would double the plant’s capacity.

Ohio’s annual corporation reports from 1916 and 1917 list an Independent Tack Co. of Fostoria, capitalized at $25,000, to make “nails, tacks, etc.” The incorporators named in that filing were S.G. Catchpole, George E. Reed, S.A. Maurer, R.L. Orwig and H.L. Zemer. Grose is not among them, so we could not confirm whether he was still involved with the Fostoria plant, or whether this was a new Ohio company formed around the Fostoria operation.

A 1917 national trade register still listed the Independent Tack Co. at Fostoria. In 1918 the Iron Trade Review reported that the company “contemplates removing its plant” to another city. The surviving snippet does not say which city, and we found no record of when the Fostoria plant closed or exactly where it stood.

Independent Tack Co., Fostoria, Ohio, real-photo postcard (publisher number 690-E), about 1915-1920

Reading the postcard

The postcard is a real-photo card, printed from a photographic negative, with a hand-lettered title and the publisher’s number 690-E. It shows a long, single-story factory with a shallow roof, several tall smokestacks and a water tower at the left. The large round basin in the foreground may have been a cooling or settling pond; we could not confirm its purpose. Because the trade press describes the Fostoria plant as new in 1915, the card most likely dates from about 1915 to 1920, later than some estimates for it.

Why it matters

• A machine-age story: Grose’s career shows how one skilled machinist with an idea could start companies in two Ohio towns within a few years.
• Seneca Wire’s long run: the wire company the 1908 history ties to Grose was still making tempered wire on South Vine Street more than 100 years after it was founded.
• Open questions: where the tack plant stood, who ran it and when it closed are still unknown.

Do you know where the Independent Tack Co. plant stood, or have a family member who worked there or at Seneca Wire? We would like to hear from you.

More from FFP: Fostoria, Ohio: Breaking Free from Old Habits to Embrace a New Future and The “Hidden Tunnels” Beneath Fostoria.

Photo note: Photographs and images published before 1931 are in the public domain in the United States. Historical images in this article are shared for educational and historical purposes.

Sources

• William B. Doyle, Centennial History of Summit County, Ohio and Representative Citizens (1908), biography of Emsley O. Grose, Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/item/80121304/
• Full text of the same 1908 history, Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/centennialhistor00doyl
• Ohio EPA, Director’s Final Findings and Orders, The Seneca Wire & Manufacturing Company (June 29, 2009): https://edocpub.epa.ohio.gov/publicportal/ViewDocument.aspx?docid=80908
• The Iron Age (1915), Fostoria plant item: https://books.google.com/books?id=1hpKAQAAMAAJ
• Steel and Iron (1915), Fostoria plant item: https://books.google.com/books?id=F6hAAQAAMAAJ
• The Ohio Journal of Commerce (1915), p. 334: https://books.google.com/books?id=G0w_AQAAMAAJ
• Iron Age (1916), plant capacity item: https://books.google.com/books?id=VQ9AAQAAMAAJ
• Department Reports of the State of Ohio (1916), incorporations: https://books.google.com/books?id=OnlCAQAAMAAJ
• Annual Statistical Report of the Ohio Secretary of State (1917): https://books.google.com/books?id=uR8AAAAAMAAJ
• Thomas’ Wholesale Grocery and Kindred Trades Register (1917): https://books.google.com/books?id=SZcKAAAAYAAJ
• Iron Trade Review (1918), p. 182: https://books.google.com/books?id=2BtKAQAAMAAJ
• Fostoria Area Historical Society, People and Houses on Sandusky St.: https://www.fostoriamuseum.org/people-and-houses-on-sandusky-st/